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Since I wrote a posting detailing what ‘Microsoft Online SVCS‘ represents on a credit card statement (it’s for Xbox Live subscriptions), it has gone on to be the most popular entry I ever made. One would imagine that when people find my page, their mind is put at ease - or at least little Billy gets told off by his mother for borrowing her VISA card, and promptly loses hours of fun when she calls Xbox Support. However, of the many public comments made on that entry, so many people have said they were seeing multiple payments going out of their account, or were completely baffled by the existence of a payment at all. Having read about the experiences of Kevin Finisterre - a gamer threatened online with having his account hacked, and promptly discovering the next day that it had been… I’m beginning to wonder if the credit card hacking problem could be bigger than Microsoft are letting on.

Three weeks ago I managed to find a blog of a Microsoft employee working on Xbox Live’s marketing, I emailed him a link to my original blog entry and said something weird was going on with Xbox Live subscriptions. He forwarded it to another guy @microsoft.com who wrote back ‘What’s the question exactly?’, to which I replied detailing all of the problems and then never heard from either of them again. Now of course I’m not saying that this isn’t because they’re just too busy to respond, but you’d think an official response for the public would be a good move. Instead three weeks on, Kevin Finisterre identifies a potential problem which certainly tallies with the experiences of some of my blog commenters.

Accordinging to Reuters, Microsoft yesterday issued the following statement: “We want to reassure all of our 6 million Xbox Live members that we have looked into the situation and found no evidence of any compromise of the security of Bungie.net or our Live network,”. Which contradicts what is being said by the Clan Infamous Web site (currently down) ”We here at Infamous steal at least 10 accounts a day depending on there (sic) levels,”… “If you talk s**t we will mod on your account until it is banned. If the levels on it are good, we will use the Credit Card on your account to then change the gamer tag.”. “You call 1-800-4my-xbox, pretend to be that person, make up a story about how your little brother put in the information on the account and it was all fake,” ”You might get one little piece of information per call, but then you keep calling and keep calling, every time getting a little bit more information … once you have enough information you can get the password (and) the Windows Live ID reset.” - worrying stuff if true and not just bravado. Securityfocus.com have the full story.

Of course there’s no reason to assume that anything sinister IS going on if you have an Xbox in your house and a one off payment has gone out for £39.99 - it’s probably an innocent renewal which you forgot would come through one day. However, if you’re seeing multiple payments on the same day for irregular amounts, or you don’t own an Xbox, then we could be looking at hacked gamertag accounts or more general credit card theft. Either way, do call Microsoft support on 0800 587 1102 as most feedback on this blog has been that they ARE very helpful, even if Kevin Finisterre found that in the US they aren’t.

Technorati Tags: xbox 360, xbox live, xbox fraud, xbox subscription, xbox credit card, gamertag, kevin finisterre, microsoft online svcs

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